Toddler and children friendly recipes Archives

Tortilla pizza wrap

A quick, family friendly one this time that your little ones can help with. Everything on a pizza but using a tortilla wrap then warmed in the oven.

I also added some surreptitious veg on this occasion which was a bit risky – I had a bit of rocket leaves and chopped it up very fine before adding it to the tomato sauce. Fortunately the little one ate it as it was masked by all the other flavours! So definitely a good way of getting some veggies in.

On this occasion we added ham and pineapple to the ‘pizza’. You can add whatever topping you like or just keep it simple with tomato and cheese.

Then simply, roll it up. Spray a little oil on top of the wrap and put it in an oven at 180C for around 10 mins. These can also be cut into bitesize lengths perfect for parties as we tried recently.

Ingredients

Tortilla wraps
Homemade tomato sauce
- A batch of this will keep for a week in the fridge. Sautee some finely chopped onion and garlic in olive oil. Add 2 tins of tomatoes and a spoonful of brown sugar. Simmer for around 20-25 mins on a low heat stirring occasionally. It will reduce down to spreadable consistency. Add salt and pepper to taste as needed (or if you’re cooking for a toddler, it should be tasty enough without).
Grated cheese (we used mozzarella)
Other toppings of choice eg ham, pineapple

Happy eating! 🤤

20/08/2320/08/23

‘Filipino’ spaghetti (toddler friendly)

With my upbringing, I was introduced to the distinctive tastes of Filipino cuisine from a young age. One of my most memorable dishes growing up is this spaghetti dish that I can still conjure up the taste of just thinking about it. It was only fairly recently that I realised it was a Filipino version of the spaghetti Bolognese. I just knew it as a sweet spaghetti dish that I could not get enough of when I was younger.

As I was thinking of stuff to make for my little one, I began to think back on what I liked to eat as a child and thought of ways of introducing it to the little man.

The authentic recipe of a Filipino spaghetti uses banana ketchup amongst other things. I only had store cupboard stuff that day so I played around with it and have managed to recreate that taste using nothing more than brown sugar (and not much of it).

If you’re feeding older kiddies and not needing to hide vegetables in, it’s a great party dish in a massive bowl to share – that’s certainly how I remember it. The gems of smoky frankfurters and that deliciously sweet tang of a sauce. Yum!

This is definitely a firm favourite for our little one.

As usual, this recipe avoids the use additional seasoning and the flavour comes from sauteing your ingredients.

frozen spinach and frozen peas as my optional veg

Recipe

Main ingredients (adjust amount depending on how much you’re making. Judge the rest of the ingredients by how much spaghetti you want to make. Definitely a recipe that can be batch cooked and frozen into ice cubes or portioned):

Frankfurters – not the tinned or jar type, but proper ones eg Herta frankfurters – diced into approx 5mm cubes depending on your target audience!
Minced pork – I tend to go for the 20% fat ones rather than 10% or even less. I find the latter becomes very tough after cooking and all round less flavourful (as there’ll be no additional flavourings apart from the sugar as you’ll see)
Spaghetti – pre boil as per pack. Cut into desired lengths if necessary (or leave this to the end of you’re blending/pureeing)
Onion (1/3 or a half) – diced. Entirely optional
1 tin of chopped tomatoes in own sauce (400g tin)
Brown sugar (1 teaspoon to a tablespoon depending on how much you’re making) – light soft, or medium soft brown sugar. Just not Demerara sugar
Vegetables (optional) – anything you want – if you need to hide veg into your little one’s meal, this is one to do it. And anything frozen works well. Examples I’ve tried – combination of peas, frozen spinach works well, carrots (diced), sweetcorn, mushrooms

Method

To make the sauce, saute your onions in a medium sized saucepan with a drop of olive oil on a medium heat.
Once they’ve slightly browned and starting to caramelise, add the minced pork and saute in the same way. (Once the initial moisture is drawn out from the pork, they’ll start to brown which is what you want).
Add the frankfurters and fry for a 3-4 mins.
Add the tin of tomatoes, then any veg if using.
Depending on how big a batch you’re making, add anything between a teaspoon to a tablespoon of brown sugar (err on less, don’t need much of it)
Depending on how watery your tomatoes are, what veg you use, you may need to add a little water (pasta water would be best) to bulk out the sauce (but not too much, you don’t want it too watery).
Place the lid on and let it simmer on a low heat for about 15-20 mins.
Add your spaghetti and stir through the sauce. Voila!

Your sauce should taste like a slightly meaty tomato sauce with a hint of sweetness.

Happy eating! 🤤🤤🤤🤤🤤

24/04/2327/04/23

Chicken, chorizo and seafood paella (low salt – toddler friendly)

Not a traditional paella of course, but the modified paella recipe is a very versatile vehicle for adding whatever it is that you have to hand. The origin of it is similar to the fried rice in Asian cuisine, or risotto in Italian cuisine – a rice dish with whatever you have or is in season.

Usually I make it with just chicken and chorizo, or just seafood. But I both meat and seafood to hand so decided to do a bit of a ‘surf and turf’ paella. As I have been doing recently, this recipe has no added salt so is toddler and children friendly. If someone is allergic to seafood or you simply don’t like some of the ingredients, just don’t add it. It is unlikely to make the recipe less tasty as long as you’ve got the paella rice in there!

This is a one pot recipe for the busy family. Making enough for leftovers and freezer friendly into portions or ice cube trays ready for your little ones. I’ve added pimenton (Spanish paprika) for taste and colour but feel free to miss it out if you don’t have any or don’t want to use it. Even though this recipe uses no stock or added salt, you’ll be surprised how flavourful it is, purely from the ingredients that you use.

Go to recipe

Happy eating!

06/06/2225/06/23

Beef lasagne (low salt, low fat)

My cooking lately has been dominated by what I can make that the little one can enjoy too. I am also one for batch cooking to make the middle of week dinners a bit easier.

Lasagne is a great dish to freeze as it can be portioned easily. I usually make it with more beef stock (usually use Bovril) and seasoning, including a dash of Worcestershire sauce in the beef but this time I have only used 1 beef stock for making 2 large trays of lasagne, so negligible really. As a consequence, the beef filling will not be as dark as you would normally expect and will be redder from the tomatoes. The first step of sauteeing the onions and garlic is crucial to allow caramelisation which gives a lot of the flavour. Browning the beef is also very important here. The beef browning process also evaporates some of the water that is in the beef as you don’t want the resulting beef mixture to be too wet.

A simple bit of pureeing to your desired consistency will be perfect for your little one. It certainly went down well in our household!

Go to recipe

Happy eating!

05/05/2223/04/23

Oxtail stew fit for a baby (and you!) – no wine, no salt

Oxtail stew fit for your baby! And you can have some too!

Oxtail stew with added veg for the little one

Oxtail is probably not the most obvious thing to feed your little one. It is meltingly tender when stewed and full of collagen. Typical oxtail stew recipes use wine and stock in the cooking liquid which is the way I have always been cooking it. But I had some oxtail the other day and really wanted to share it with the little 👶 so I modified how I usually cooked oxtail but still making sure that it remains rich and tasty for us! Because oxtail is mainly bones, it creates its own stock when cooked so there really isn’t any need to add a stock cube which is, of course, high in salt.

Whilst adding a good red wine to your stewing liquid gives the stew another dimension, to be honest, I’d be more than happy to go without it in the recipe in the future. Except for the glass or two to go with the stew of course!

This recipe does take a long time to cook and the longer you cook it, the more tender the meat gets. So if you are able to plan ahead and cook it the day before as suggested, I would highly recommend it. Otherwise, if you are cooking on the day, give oxtail more time to stew if you can before eating. The cooking time in the oven can be extended as you prefer, just keep an eye on the stewing liquid although it shouldn’t dry out too much if you are using a heavy bottomed pot with a lid.

Using the approach of the trio of ‘humble beginnings‘ (aka mirepoix, holy trinity, soffrito, battuto, etc – a really good article explaining what these are at seriouseats.com) of garlic, onions and celery, the ‘beginnings’ of the stew flavours were set without the need for any salt at all.

Browning the oxtails first caramelises the meat, again adding an extra layer of flavour to the stewing liquid.

Not to be too blasé about it, but the rest of the recipe is just about chucking all the rest of the ingredients into the cooking pot and let it stew. So it is actually quite an easy recipe. The vegetables you add to your stew can be any combination you like. A very versatile recipe.

Add all ingredients into the pot ready to bring to the boil

I served it with cous cous this time but you can serve it with rice, bread etc. anything that can soak/mop up the rich sauce. With no wine, no salt and lots of vegetables, it’s a perfect recipe to diversify your little ones’ taste adventure. There were certainly no leftovers from either the boss 👶 or the other minion 👨!

Happy eating! 🤤🤤🤤🤤

See full recipe